RachelKoning Beals

News editor

MikeMurphy

Editor

If you can only squeeze in one game Thursday and you can cheat bedtime a little on a school night, the NCAA men’s basketball Midwest Region matchup could bring the biggest payoff for your precious time.

Maybe that’s because Purdue-Kansas features one of the biggest power forwards to ever dribble a basketball against one of the biggest college basketball dynasties.

And if you have the appetite for more, here’s where and when to catch all of Thursday’s games:

Sports Illustrated

In the Midwest, a No. 1-seed Kansas, led by National Player of the Year favorite Frank Mason, takes on No. 4 Purdue and its own National Player of the Year candidate and Big Ten Player of the Year Caleb Swanigan, a big kid with arguably one of sweetest personal stories of the tournament.

Not too many years ago, the 360-pound obese 13-year-old without much stability in his young life looked like anything but a basketball player. Except that he didn’t believe that was true. And neither did his adoptive father, Roosevelt Barnes, a former NFL player and agent. First steps were off the court: getting healthy.

Rethinking Sweet: “If you eat a salad and you train your taste buds to come off all that sugar, salt and fat, vegetables are sweet,” Roosevelt Barnes tells the Washington Post. “Romaine lettuce is sweet. Iceberg lettuce is sweet. Spinach is sweet. Cherry tomatoes are sweet.”

Of course, Caleb is a kid: “Yeah, there were times when he would cheat, but the thing is you have to have more days when you win than when you lose,” said Barnes. And don’t underestimate the healthy mindset, which by now, is all Caleb. How do you take on Kansas and, well, life? “Just have to have a resilience about you,” he says.

The only double-digit seed still standing: Despite Xavier’s late-season buckle, this is not a true No. 11 seed, argues Sports Illustrated. Injuries left them short of a full regular starting lineup a couple of times during the season. But even at full strength, Thursday’s 10 p.m. Eastern tip off against Arizona will test more than Xavier’s personal belief that they truly belong in the Sweet 16. From the end of January through the second round of the NCAA tournament, few teams in the country have played as well as Arizona.

Goodnight, Cinderella: Michigan may have been the only true Cinderella team remaining, but the clock struck midnight for the Wolverines in a 69-68 loss to Oregon on Thursday night. The No. 7-seed Wolverines finished only fifth in the Big Ten, but were riding high after knocking off a national title contender in Louisville.

The Ducks’ win greatly pleased at least one person outside of Oregon: Las Vegas casino owner Tilman Fertitta will no longer be on the hook for a $12,500 bet on Michigan — at 80-to-1 odds — from rival casino owner Derek Stevens. Had Michigan won it all, the Stevens’ bet would have been worth a cool $1 million.

Zags zig: It wasn’t pretty, but No. 1-seed Gonzaga escaped an upset bid by No. 4-seed West Virginia, winning 61-58, in the other early game. The Mountaineers, trailing by three in a game that had been dominated by defense, had a chance to tie in the closing seconds, but could not get off anything better than a desperation shot that fell short as time expired.

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